Rumours circulated over the weekend that the UCP could appoint Trade, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Rajan Sawhney as the UCP candidate in Calgary-North West. Sawhney has served as MLA for Calgary-North East since 2019 but announced in February 2023 that she would not run for re-election.
There is also speculation in political circles that the UCP could name Nolan Dyck as the party’s candidate in Grande Prairie-Wapiti. Dyck is currently seeking the nomination in the neighbouring Grande Prairie riding but is President of the UCP association in Grande Prairie-Wapiti and is politically close to Toews.
Liberal Party names 6 new candidates
The Liberal Party has named six new candidates, bringing the party’s total slate of candidates up to seven.
Donna Wilson
The slate of new candidates includes Dr. Donna Wilson, a nursing professor at the University of Alberta who’s area of research focuses on health services and health policy.
Wilson will be carrying the party’s banner in Edmonton-Whitemud, where she previously ran for the Liberals in a 2014 by-election. Back then, the Liberals were led by now-UCP candidate Dr. Raj Sherman and the Wildrose Party was led by now UCP Premier Danielle Smith. The riding is currently represented by NDP MLA Rakhi Pancholi.
Wilson also ran for the Liberals in Edmonton-Riverview in the 2015 election.
Other Liberal Party candidates include:
Charlie Heater in Calgary-Fish Creek
Prince Mugisha in Calgary-North East
Jean Kijuli in Edmonton-Manning
Abdi Bakal in Edmonton-Mill Woods
Patricia Chizek in Lethbridge-West
Bakal and Chizek were candidates in those ridings in the 2019 election. Liberal Party leader John Roggeveen has not announced where he plans to run.
Other nomination updates
The Independence Party of Alberta has nominated Bob Blayone in Camrose, Terry Wolsey in Cardston-Siksika, David Reid in Innisfail-Sylvan Lake, Corrie Toone in Livigstone-Macleod, Katherine Kowalchuk in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, Fred Schwieger in Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre, Brent Ginther in Taber-Warner.
Ashley MacDonald is the Green Party candidate in Red Deer-South.
Upcoming nomination votes
With just 63 days left until Election Day, the UCP have nominated candidates in 81 of Alberta’s 87 ridings and Alberta NDP have nominated 77 candidates. The Green Party has 27 candidates, the Alberta Party has nominated 12 candidates, the Liberal Party has seven, and the Independence Party has at least seven.
Rachel Notley at the Edmonton-Strathcona nomination rally (source: Rachel Notley / Facebook)
Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley was nominated as her party’s candidate in Edmonton-Strathcona this past weekend. Speaking to a crowd of more than 800 supporters gathered at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, Notley delivered an energetic speech that felt like a campaign kick-off for the former premier’s party.
Notley was first elected as MLA for the central Edmonton riding in 2008 and was re-elected in 2019 with 72.2 per cent of the vote. The riding has elected NDP MLAs since 1997 and the party previously held the riding from 1986 to 1993.
UCP choose Claresholm Mayor in ‘do-over’ nomination vote in Livingstone-Macleod
Claresholm Mayor Chelsae Petrovic and UCP leadership candidate Rebecca Schulz in 2022 (source: Chelsae Petrovic/Facebook)
Town of Claresholm Mayor Chelsae Petrovic won the United Conservative Party‘s ‘do-over’ nomination vote in Livingstone-Macleod. Petrovic defeated Tanya Clemens and Don Whalen in a decisive first ballot victory. Petrovic earned 759 votes with Clemens collecting 469 votes and Whalen finishing third with 118 votes.
This is the UCP’s second time holding a nomination vote in the southern Alberta riding.
Former People’s Party candidate Nadine Wellwood was the only candidate in a previous nomination race held in November 2022 after MLA Roger Reid withdrew the day after the entry deadline. Wellwood was then disqualified by the UCP provincial board of directors.
Crowsnest Pass Municipal Councillor Lisa Sygutekwrote about the nomination vote and what she describes as Take Back Alberta’s takeover of the local UCP constituency association.
The NDP have nominated well-known conservationist and author Kevin Van Tighem and Nanton town councillor Kevin Todd is running for the Alberta Party.
Bouchard wins 5-way UCP race in Calgary-Lougheed
Restaurant manager Eric Bouchard defeated Sherrisa Celis, Max DeGroat, Mark Fiselier, and Michelle Mather to win the UCP nomination in Calgary-Lougheed.
The riding was represented by former premier Jason Kenney from 2017 until his resignation in November 2022.
NDP members in the riding voted to select Venkat Akkiraj over Kim Wagner in that party’s nomination vote this week. Akkiraj is a law student and former organizer with the Ontario NDP.
City Councillor jumps into Grande Prairie UCP race
City Councillor Gladys Blackmore is the fourth candidate to enter the UCP nomination contest in Grande Prairie. Blackmore served on City Council from 2001-2010 before making an unsuccessful bids for mayor in 2010 and 2013. She returned to city council in 2021.
She joins Nolan Dyck, Larry Gibson, and Tayyab Parvez in the race to choose a UCP successor to retiring MLA Tracy Allard.
The UCP MLA for the neighbouring Grande Prairie-Wapiti riding, Finance Minister Travis Toews, has still not announced whether he plans to run for re-election. Toews is now the only remaining MLA who has not announced their plans for the May election.
Hinshaw critic wins UCP nomination in Lethbridge-West
Torry Tanner defeated Rick Dempsey to win the UCP nomination vote in Lethbridge-West. Tanner was a participant in an unsuccessful lawsuit against former Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw challenging Alberta’s COVID-19 public health restrictions.
The riding is currently represented by NDP Shannon Phillips.
Other nomination updates
Calgary-Foothills: The Alberta Party disqualified Shaoli Wang as a candidate after a series of embarrassing social media posts were revealed. Wang will instead run as an Independent candidate.
Cypress-Medicine Hat: James Finkbeiner and Justin Wright are on the ballot when UCP members vote to nominate a candidate on March 16. The riding is currently represented by Independent MLA Drew Barnes.
Edmonton-City Centre: Richard Wong is the UCP candidate in this downtown Edmonton riding.
Leduc-Beaumont: Heather Feldbusch, Nam Kular, Brandon Lunty, Dawn Miller, Dave Quest, and Karen Richert are running for the UCP nomination. A vote is scheduled for March 18.
Peace River: Nancy O’Neill is running for the Independence Party of Alberta nomination.
Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre: Former Clearwater County Reeve Tim Hovenwill run as an Independent candidate. Hoven was disqualified from running for the UCP nomination against Jason Nixon last year. It was widely believed that Hoven could have defeated Nixon, who was then serving as former premier Kenney’s chief lieutenant.
Alberta NDP nominated candidates as of March 6, 2023. Ridings with nominated candidates in dark orange, ridings with scheduled nomination meetings in light orange. (map from https://canadianpolling.ca/diy/ab/)
Alberta NDP nominated candidates as of March 6, 2023. Ridings with nominated candidates in dark orange, ridings with scheduled nomination meetings in light orange. (map from https://canadianpolling.ca/diy/ab/)
The Alberta NDP leads the pack with 75 candidates nominated across the province. NDP leader Rachel Notley will be nominated as her party’s candidate in Edmonton-Strathcona at a pre-election rally at the big NDP campaign training school in Edmonton on March 11. And two candidates – Venkat Akkiraj and Kim Wagner – are vying for the NDP nomination in Calgary-Lougheed on March 14.
The remaining NDP vacancies without scheduled nomination meetings are in the ridings of Cardston-Siksika, Drayton Valley-Devon, Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche, Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo, Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville, Grande Prairie, Grande Prairie-Wapiti, Highwood, Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin, and Taber-Warner.
These are mostly ridings where the NDP is seen as having little chance of winning, though NDP MLAs did represent Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville and parts of Maskwacis-Wetaskwin from 2015 to 2019.
United Conservative Party nominated candidates as of March 6, 2023. Ridings with nominated candidates in dark blue, ridings with scheduled nomination meetings in light blue. (map from https://canadianpolling.ca/diy/ab/)
Nominations votes are scheduled for Livingstone-Macleod (March 9, 10, 11), Calgary-Lougheed (March 13), Lethbridge-West (March 14), Cypress-Medicine Hat (March 16), and Leduc-Beaumont (March 18).
That leaves unscheduled or unannounced UCP nominations in Grande Prairie and Grande Prairie-Wapiti (where Finance Minister Travis Toews has not announced his intentions to run for re-election), and the central Edmonton ridings of Edmonton-City Centre, Edmonton-Glenora, Edmonton-Gold Bar, Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood, Edmonton-Riverview and Edmonton-Strathcona (which are all among the safest NDP ridings in Alberta).
Green Party of Alberta nominated candidates as of March 6, 2023. Ridings with nominated candidates in dark green. (map from https://canadianpolling.ca/diy/ab/)Alberta Party nominated candidates as of March 6, 2023. Ridings with nominated candidates in blue. (map from https://canadianpolling.ca/diy/ab/)
Calling for a public health care inquiry in March 2011, folk-hero Independent MLA Raj Sherman stood with NDP leader Brian Mason, Alberta Party leader Sue Huff, Wildrose leader Danielle Smith and Liberal leader David Swann.
And it’s in Edmonton-Whitemud that the Emergency Room doctor and former leader of the Alberta Liberal Party hopes to make his next political comeback.
Sherman first jumped onto the political scene back in 2008, when he was elected as the Progressive Conservative MLA for Edmonton-Meadowlark. He briefly served as Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Health and Wellness but his time in the PC fold was short.
Sherman was removed from the PC Caucus in 2010 and briefly enjoyed an almost folk-hero status in Alberta politics before deciding to run for the Liberal Party leadership in 2011. He won on the first ballot in the party’s first (and only) open-membership vote.
Sherman was unable to mend the Liberal Party’s political wounds and only narrowly held on to his seat in the 2012 election. The moribund Liberals placed a distant third behind Alison Redford‘s PCs and Danielle Smith‘s Wildrose Party.
UCP members vote on February 23. Joining Sherman on the ballot are David Masieyi and UCP Caucus staffer Varun Chandrasekar.
Edmonton-Whitemud is currently represented by NDP MLA Rakhi Pancholi and it is considered a safe NDP riding going into the next election.
UCP to choose Calgary-Fish Creek candidate
UCP members in this south Calgary riding will choose from three candidates to replace retiring MLA Richard Gotfried. Dave Guenter, Myles McDougall, and Christina Steed are seeking the nomination. Steed has the endorsement of Gotfried and former area MLA Cindy Ady. Guenter has an endorsement from Finance Minister Travis Toews and McDougall has the backing of Take Back Alberta-linked organizers. A nomination meeting is being held on February 23.
Four running for UCP in Lesser Slave Lake
Four candidates are on the ballot in the Lesser Slave Lake UCP nomination vote on February 25 and 26. Former constituency assistant Martine Carifelle, oil field operator Jerrad Cunningham, auto glass repair shop owner Scott Sinclair, and former chief Silas Yellowknee of the Bigstone First Nation are seeking the nomination to succeed retiring UCP MLA Pat Rehn.
Tischer running for NDP in Athbasca-Barrhead-Westlock
Pastor-turned-horizontal directional driller Landen Tischer is expected to be acclaimed as the NDP candidate in this sprawling rural riding north of Edmonton. A nomination meeting is being held on February 25.
The riding is currently represented by UCP MLA Glenn van Dijken, who fended off a nomination challenge from Westlock County Councillor Isaac Skuban late last year.
Newly nominated candidates
Edmonton-Manning: UCP voters in this north east Edmonton riding voted to select their candidate last night but the results have not yet been released. Alberto Mazzocca and Jaspreet Saggu were seeking the nomination.
Edmonton-North West: Ali Haymour was acclaimed as the UCP candidate. Haymour is a familiar name to north Edmonton voters, having previously run for City Council in 2017 and 2021, and as the Alberta Party candidate in Edmonton-Decore in 2019 and the NDP candidate in Edmonton-Castle Downs in 2008 and 2012.
Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland: UCP MLA Shane Getson has been acclaimed as his party candidate in this rural riding just north west of Edmonton. Town of Mayerthorpe Mayor Janet Jabush is now the Alberta Party candidate. Jabush has served as mayor since 2019.
Newly announced candidates
Calgary-Lougheed: Sherrisa Celis is the fifth candidate to enter the UCP nomination race in this south west Calgary riding. Celis is a program manager with· Calgary Catholic Immigration Society and ran for the UCP nomination in Calgary-Cross in 2018. Her website lists endorsements from Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo MLA Tany Yaoand former Calgary MLA Art Johnston. Also running for the nomination are Eric Bouchard, Max DeGroat, Mark Fiselier, and Michelle Mather.
Edmonton-Strathcona: NDP leader Rachel Notley is expected to be acclaimed as her party’s candidate at a nomination rally at NAIT on March 11. Notley was first elected in 2008 and was re-elected in 2019 with 72.27 per cent of the vote.
Withdrawn candidates
Cypress-Medicine Hat:Dustin Cartwright has withdrawn his candidacy for the Green Party in this south east Alberta riding.
Vote for the top picks in this year's Best of Alberta Politics Survey. In photo: Janis Irwin, Danielle Smith, Rachel Notley, Jordan Walker, Rajan Sawhney, Travis Toews, Shannon Phillips, Rick Wilson, Rakhi Pancholi and Jason Kenney. (source: Assembly.ab.ca)
With thousands of submissions made to the sixth annual Best of Alberta Politics 2022 survey, your choices have been sorted and you can now vote for the top 3 choices in each category. Voting is open until Dec. 22, 2022 at 8:00 pm and the winners will be announced shortly after at daveberta.ca. Thank you to everyone who voted.
MLA Glenn van Dijken defeated Westlock County Councillor Isaac Skuban to secure the United Conservative Party nomination in Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock. van Dijken was first elected in 2015 as a Wildrose MLA and was re-elected in 2019 as UCP candidate.
Tunde Obasan
Tunde Obasan defeated Karen Stix to win the UCP nomination in Edmonton-South. This will be Obasan’s second time running as a UCP candidate in the riding. He placed second with 43.1 per cent of the vote in 2019. In 2021, he was the federal Conservative candidate in Edmonton-Strathcona, where he finished second with 25.3 per cent of the vote. Obasan will face NDP candidate Rhiannon Hoyle in the next election.
Slava Cravcenco is running for the UCP nomination in Edmonton-West Henday. Cravcenco ran for the UCP nomination in the neighbouring Edmonton-South West earlier this year and was defeated by UCP MLA Kaycee Madu. With incumbent NDP MLA Jon Carsonnot seeking re-election, the NDP have nominated lawyer Brooks Arcand-Paul.
The UCP nomination vote in Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, where MLA David Hanson faces a challenge from former MLA Scott Cyr and former county reeve Greg Sawchuk, concludes on December 12 and only a handful of other nomination votes are scheduled to happen before the new year:
Steve Outhouse (source: Steve Outhouse / LinkedIn)
The UCP has hired Steve Outhouse as the party’s campaign manager for the next provincial election.
The Ontario-based political staffer and campaigner was deputy chief of staff to former Conservative Party of Canada leader Erin O’Toole, and was campaign manager on Leslyn Lewis’ campaign for the federal Conservative leadership in 2022.
This announcement comes a week after the UCP hired another Ontario political organizer, Pierçon Knezic, as the party’s Director of Election Readiness.
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Aheer was vague about whether she would run as an Independent or for another party, but it became increasingly clear that she would have a very difficult time winning the UCP nomination in her riding.
The second-term MLA placed last in the recent UCP leadership race and is facing a strong nomination challenge from Chantelle De Jonge. The former MP constituency assistant has stressed her conservative political credentials in contrast to Aheer’s more moderate conservative positions on social issues like abortion and public health restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
De Jonge’s recent endorsement from Bruce McAllister, who Aheer unseated as MLA in 2015 and now serves as Premier Danielle Smith‘s executive director at the McDougall Centre, sent a pretty clear message that there isn’t room for Aheer in the UCP.
McAllister is only one of the former Wildrose Party MLAs who crossed the floor with Smith to the Progressive Conservatives in 2014 to reemerge in the new Premier’s orbit.
Former Airdrie MLA Rob Anderson is Smith’s Transition Team Chair and Executive Director of the Premier’s Office, and former Strathmore-Brooks MLA Jason Hale was appointed last week as the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation.
New NDP candidates
The Alberta NDP have nominated Caitlyn Blake in Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, lawyer Andrew Stewart in Calgary-Hays, and teacher Liana Paiva in Peace River. The NDP now have 63 candidates nominated to run in the next election.
UCP nominees emerge
Since Smith won the party leadership, the party has opened up nominations in a handful of ridings. The deadline to enter nominations in Drayton Valley-Devon, Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo, Livingstone-Macleod, St. Albert and Vermilion-Lloydminster-Wainwright is October 31, and in Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock, Airdrie-Cochrane, Airdrie-East, Calgary-Varsity, Edmonton-South and Taber-Warner is November 7, and Calgary-Elbow is November 10.
A number of prospective UCP nominees have recently announced their plans to run:
Tunde Obasan
Martine Carifelle is seeking the UCP nomination in Lesser Slave Lake. She is incumbent UCP MLA Pat Rehn‘s former constituency manager. Rehn has not publicly announced if he is running for re-election.
Tunde Obasan is running for the UCP nomination in Edmonton-South. He was the party’s candidate in the riding in 2019 and ran for the federal Conservatives in Edmonton-Strathcona in 2021. Saad Siddiq and Karen Stix are also seeking the nomination.
Angela Wood is seeking the UCP nomination in St. Albert. Wood placed second in the St. Albert mayoral election in 2021.
The other parties
The Green Party has nominated Zak Abdi in Edmonton-City Centre, Chitra Bakshi in Edmonton-Mill Woods and Carl McKay in Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock.
Interim party leader John Roggeveen announced in an email to Alberta Liberal Party supporters they has opened up applications for people to run under the party’s banner in the next election.
Brooks Arcand-Paul (second from the left) with Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse, Linda Duncan and Blake Desjarlais at the nomination campaign launch in Edmonton-West Henday. (Source: Instagram)
Arcand-Paul launched his candidacy in the west Edmonton riding the day after two-term MLA Jon Carson announced he would not run for re-election.
“Albertans deserve leaders who care about people, Arcand-Paul said in a statement.
“The NDP have a proven record that they really care about all people. The last few years have presented our communities with unprecedented challenges, and the UCP government has failed us at every turn. It’s time for government to work for all Albertans, rather than against them. From rising insurance and utility rates, cuts to education and healthcare, we cannot afford another UCP term. ”
Arcand-Paul is the in-house legal counsel for the Alexander First Nation, located about a 25-minute drive northwest of Edmonton, and Vice President of the Indigenous Bar Association.
His launch event included endorsements from Edmonton-Griesbach MP Blake Desjarlais, former Edmonton-Strathcona MP Linda Duncan and Edmonton-Rutherford NDP nomination candidate Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse.
The date for a nomination meeting has not yet been announced.
The battle for Calgary heating up
The NDP need to sweep Alberta’s largest city if they want to win the next election, and vulnerable Calgary United Conservative Party MLAs know it. Rachel Notley has been spending a lot of time in Calgary and NDP MLAs have been spending nearly every spare minute knocking on doors in the city.
Jeremy Nixon (centre with the lawn sign) and UCP MLAs and volunteers in Calgary-Klein. (source: Instagram)
A group of UCP MLAs were spotted door-knocking in Calgary-Klein to support first-term UCP MLA Jeremy Nixon, who is facing a strong challenge from NDP candidate Marilyn North Peigan.
Calgary-Currie MLA Nicholas Milliken, Calgary-Edgemont MLA Prasad Panda, Calgary-Beddington MLA Josephine Pon, and Calgary-East MLA Peter Singh were on the doors this weekend with Nixon and party volunteers.
The NDP held a similar door-knocking blitz in the riding with MLAs and dozens of volunteers earlier in the year.
Meanwhile, Edmonton-Whitemud NDP MLA Rakhi Pancholi was recently doorknocking with NDP candidate Julia Hayter in Calgary-Edgemont, and Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood MLA Janis Irwin was busy campaigning with Rosman Valencia in Calgary-East.
And Notley wasin Calgary for Druh Farrell’s nomination meeting in Calgary-Bow and to join Calgary-Falconridge candidate Parmeet Singh Boparai and Calgary-Bhullar-McCall MLA Irfan Sabir at Nagar Kirtan celebrations.
Best Alberta MLA: Janis Irwin, MLA for Edmonton-Highands-Norwood
Always a fan favourite, for the second year in a row Janis Irwin has been voted Best Alberta MLA. Irwin is a hard-working MLA in the Assembly and in her constituency, and her sense of humour (and her social media star cat, Oregano) has endeared her to politicos on both sides of the aisle.
Leela Aheer (Source: Twitter)
Best Alberta Cabinet Minister: Leela Aheer, Minister of Culture, Multiculturalism and Status of Women
Nurturing a reputation as an affable politician, Leela Aheer proved herself to be on the right side of public opinion in Alberta when she spoke out against Premier Jason Kenney and called on him to resign. The MLA for Chestermere-Strathmore was booted from cabinet for speaking out against Kenney, but that probably only further endeared her to the growing majority of Albertans who disapprove of the Premier’s performance.
That Aheer remains a member of UCP Caucus after openly calling on Kenney to resign is also a testament to how well-liked she is by her UCP MLA colleagues.
Rachel Notley (source: Facebook)
Best Opposition MLA: Rachel Notley, MLA for Edmonton-Strathcona
For the third year in a row, Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley has been voted Best Opposition MLA. Notley continues to be her party’s greatest asset and, if the polls and party fundraising returns are any indication, might stand a good chance at leading her party to form government when the next election is held in 2023.
If Notley’s party is successful in 2023, she would be the first former Premier to return to that office in Alberta’s history.
Rakhi Pancholi
Up and Coming MLA to Watch in 2022: Rakhi Pancholi, MLA for Edmonton-Whitemud
A tireless advocate for childcare since she was first elected in 2019, Rakhi Pancholi has been voted Up and Coming MLA to Watch for a second year in a row.
Pancholi is smart and well-spoken, and has been tough and tenacious in her calls for affordable and accessible childcare for Alberta families.
Jyoti Gondek
Best Political Play of 2021: Jyoti Gondek‘s election as Mayor of Calgary
Jyoti Gondek defied public expectations and a motivated conservative establishment to win Calgary’s mayoral election in October 2021, becoming the first woman to be elected mayor of Alberta’s largest city.
The annual Best of Alberta Politics survey was started in 2017 as a way to give followers of Alberta politics a chance to recognize the best players in Alberta politics.
Thank you to the more than 2,000 people who voted in this year’s survey and for everyone who read this website and listened to the Daveberta Podcast this year.
Best of Alberta Politics 2021 nominees: Leela Aheer, Janis Irwin, Brian Jean, Ric McIver, Rachel Notley, Rakhi Pancholi, Shannon Phillips, and Rajan Sawhney.
With hundreds of submissions made to the Best of Alberta Politics 2021 survey, your choices have been sorted and you can now vote in each category. Voting is open until Dec. 22, 2021 at 6:00 pm and the winners will be announced shortly after that.
2. Who was the best Alberta cabinet minister of 2021? – VOTE
Leela Aheer, Minister of Culture, Multiculturalism and Status of Women
Ric McIver, Minister of Municipal Affairs
Rajan Sawhney, Minister of Transportation
Honourable mentions to runners-up Minister of Health Jason Copping and Minister of Finance Travis Toews. It is also worth noting that a large number of people chose to submit various versions of “none of the above.”
3. Who was the best opposition MLA of 2021? – VOTE
Janis Irwin, MLA for Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood
Rachel Notley, MLA for Edmonton-Strathcona
Shannon Phillips, MLA for Lethbridge-West
Honourable mention to runners-up Edmonton-City Centre MLA David Shepherd and Edmonton-Whitemud MLA Rakhi Pancholi..
4. Who is the up and coming MLA to watch in 2022? – VOTE
Janis Irwin, MLA for Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood
Brian Jean, (potentially future) MLA for Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche
Rakhi Pancholi, MLA for Edmonton-Whitemud
Honourable mentions to runners-up Drumheller-Stettler MLA Nate Horner and Edmonton-South MLA Thomas Dang.
5. What was the biggest political play of 2021 in Alberta? – VOTE
Brian Jean’s political comeback
Jason Kenney’s “Open For Summer/Best Summer Ever” COVID-19 plan
Jyoti Gondek’s election as Mayor of Calgary
What was the biggest political issue of 2021 in Alberta?
In some past years this category has been a dog’s breakfast, but like last year, this year your choice was clear. COVID-19 was the clear choice of the overwhelming majority of people who submitted in this category. The global COVID-19 pandemic defined Alberta politics in 2021, with the failure of Premier Jason Kenney’s “Open For Summer” plan and the fourth wave that followed garnering the most submissions.
Supporters of the Alberta Liberal Party will gather virtually this weekend for the party’s annual general meeting two years after the party was shut out of the Legislative Assembly for the first time in more than three decades.
The Liberals formed the official opposition for most of the period from their defeat until the 1967 election, when the Progressive Conservatives led by Peter Lougheed knocked the Liberals to third place in the Legislature.
As the Liberals ponder what it means to be a seatless party in 2021, I took a look back at what happened the last time the Liberals were shut out of the Legislature.
The 1967 election marked the Liberal Party’s poorest showing in decades, and death, defection and resignation would mean the party’s three MLA caucus would not survive the full term.
Michael Maccagno
Party leader and Lac La Biche MLA Michael Maccagno resigned his seat in early 1968 to run in the federal election and later formally resigned as leader in October 1968. Edson MLA William Switzer died of a heart attack in June 1969. And in November 1969 the party’s sole remaining caucus member, Calgary-Glenmore MLA Bill Dickie, crossed the floor to join Lougheed’s PC Party.
The party was on the decline and faired poorly in the by-elections to replace Maccagno and Switzer, with Liberal candidates finishing third in Lac La Biche and fourth in Edson.
But that was not where this story of the Alberta Liberal Party’s ends.
Former United Church Minister Jack Lowery, who preached at Calgary’s Southwood United Church without collecting remuneration so he could work full-time as the public relations manager for ATCO Industries Ltd., was chosen as leader on April 26, 1969.
Harry Strom
He was also the chief statistician for the Calgary Stampeder Football Club, where he led a team of analysts and technicians who tracked the CFL team’s performance. It is no wonder that Calgary Herald’s Johnny Hopkins described him in 1967 as someone who simply couldn’t find enough activities to fill all his waking hours.
With none of the party’s MLA entering the leadership race, Lowery defeated Town of Manning Mayor Don Branigan (who would later become Mayor of Whitehorse in Yukon), future party leader Bob Russell, and 20-year old University of Alberta political science student Trevor Midgley (who entered the race 8 minutes before the nomination deadline).
The 39-year old Lowery moved to Alberta after graduating from theology school in Toronto to serve churches in the Hardisty area and described himself as an “issues-oriented pragmatist” with a left-orientated slant on social development philosophy and “small conservative” financial ideas.
A campaign poster from Nick Taylor’s campaign in Calgary-Centre in 1968.
This was Lowery’s second foray into elected politics, having just the previous year mounted an unsuccessful campaign against oilman and school board trustee Nick Taylor for the federal Liberal nomination in Calgary-Centre (Taylor would go on to lead the Liberals back into the Legislature in 1986).
“It’s been said for a long time that there are those in the Liberal Party who have had a vested interest in defeat,” Lowery told Calgary Herald for the “Personality of the Week” column on May 30, 1969.
“They’ve been quite happy to go directly to Ottawa without having to work in a party structure that could go somewhere. All of these people will be encouraged to become party of the team,” Lowery said.
Peter Lougheed
Lowery was an outsider who inherited the leadership of a deeply divided and cash poor party that was overshadowed by a flashier and increasingly unpopular federal Liberal Party led by Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
He was the Liberal Party’s third leader in five years following the resignation of Adrian Berry after nine months as leader in 1966 and the return of Maccagno as leader for a second time before Lowery was chosen.
Early on in his leadership he dismissed the chances of Lougheed’s PCs and pledged to reestablish the Liberals as the alternative to the long-governing Social Credit Party, which he described as “very long on promises and short on implementation.”
The decision by MLA Dickie to join the Lougheed PCs in November 1969 because of what he described as “leftist philosophy” in the Liberal Party meant the party no longer had any representation in Legislature.
“This merely clears the decks so that we can do the kind of building we’ve been wanting to do. I do not agree with him that we have a leftist philosophy,” said Lowery in response his Dickie’s defection.
But it all really started to unravel for Lowery when was revealed the next month that he had reached out to Social Credit Premier Harry Strom to either merge or create an electoral alliance between the two parties.
His fate was sealed.
Pat Mahoney
“We can run candidates in the traditional sense in the next election. We can stand aside and let the Social Credit and Conservative partiee fight it out, or we can work with Social Credit to determine areas of mutual interest,” Lowery told the Calgary Herald on Dec. 30, 1969.
“We are 10 years away from being an effective political force and some form of coalitionin which the Liberal party would retain its identity is one of the alternatives open,” Lowery said.
Calgary-South Liberal Member of Parliament Pat Mahoney, a former President of the Calgary Stampeders Football Club, said the idea should be pursued with an open mind.
“The Alberta Liberals have been unfairly burned by the identification with Ottawa and the necessity of supporting federal policies,” Mahoney told the Calgary Herald. “They have a right to pursue an independent course.”
Hu Harries
But Mahoney’s federal colleague from Edmonton had a different opinion. Edmonton-Strathcona Liberal MP Hu Harries called the proposal “bloody nonsense” and predicted it will not receive support from the Alberta Liberals membership.
Harries called on Lowery to resign and described talk of a Liberal-Socred alliance as a “selfish, stupid reaction to a complete failure” that was the Liberal Party’s inability to win the by-elections to replace the party’s former MLAs.
Prominent Edmonton Liberal and well-known publisher Mel Hurtig described the idea as absurd and clashed with Lowery at a party meeting in January 1970.
“Liberals are not people who are concerned with developing deals where they sell out their principles,” Hurtig was reported to have said.
Lowery defended his position by arguing that the merger discussions with the Socreds had “provoked interest and has given us an opportunity to delineate what we stand for as Liberals.”
But Harries and Hurtig were not alone. Constituency association presidents from across the province revolted against the idea – and Lowery.
And despite Lowery’s optimism, Strom’s own public response poured cold water on the entire idea of a Socred-Liberal alliance.
“We would be prepared to welcome those members of the Liberal party or any other party, who wish not join and work with us, but we are not at all interest in any deals or mergers,” Strom said.
The other opposition parties took it as an opportunity to welcome disaffected or confused Liberals into their camps.
Alberta New Democratic Party leader Grant Notley said his party would open wide the doors for disgruntled Liberals who wish to join “a genuine alternative to the conservative consensus of the Socreds and Tories.”
And Lougheed said any move toward a Liberal-Socred alliance would benefit his PC party.
“The last provincial election and the last two by-elections indicate that the majority of liberal-inclined voters would prefer to see a new progressive government in Alberta end 35 years of Social Credit control,” Lougheed said.
On February 16, 1970, only 10 short months after winning the leadership, Lowery resigned as leader of the Alberta Liberal Party.
He was replaced by the third-place finisher from the previous year’s leadership contest, Bob Russell.
A year later, Lowery re-emerged into the political spotlight to publicly announced he had left the provincial Liberals and was joining the Social Credit Party. He was soon after named the coordinator of the party’s Calgary campaign for the 1971 provincial election.
When the votes were counted on August 30, 1971, Lougheed’s PC Party had unseated the Socreds to form the first new government in Alberta since 1935. It was a political earthquake from which the Socreds would never recover.
And the Liberals remained shut out of the Legislature. The party’s vote dropped to 1.01 per cent and no where in Alberta did a Liberal candidate come close to winning election.
The Liberals would remain in the electoral wilderness in Alberta for the next 15 years.
A map of tonight’s federal election results in Alberta would show a sea of Conservative Party blue, but if you zoomed in on the two largest urban centres the results are more interesting.
It looks like 29 Conservative incumbents were re-elected, many with margins of victory that are large but narrower than the party’s results in the 2019 federal election.
With 71 per cent of the vote, it appears that Battle River-Crowfoot Conservative Damien Kurek was elected with the largest percentage of the vote. This is down from his 85.5 per cent of the vote in 2019.
The only new Conservative candidate elected in Alberta is Laila Goodridge, a former United Conservative Party MLA who was elected in Fort McMurray-Cold Lake.
As of 11:14pm it looks like Liberal Party candidate George Chahal has been elected in Calgary-Skyview, unseating Conservative Jag Sahota in the northeast Calgary riding.
In Edmonton-Centre, Liberal Randy Boissonnault sits with 33 per cent of the vote ahead of Conservative incumbent James Cumming with 31 per cent and NDP candidate Heather Mackenzie with 30 per cent.
If successful in his bid for election, Boissonnault will likely join Chahal in the federal Liberal cabinet as the two Liberals from Alberta.The race in Edmonton-Centre marks a breakthrough for the NDP with Mackenzie earning the party’s best ever result in the riding.
With NDP incumbent Heather McPherson re-elected with a commanding 59 per cent in Edmonton-Strathcona, it looks like the NDP may have picked up a second seat in Edmonton. As of 11:17pm, Edmonton-Griesbach NDP candidate Blake Desjarlais was leading Conservative incumbent Kerry Diotte by 557 votes with 194 of 232 polls reporting.
The NDP poured a lot of resources into Desjarlais’ campaign, with party leader Jagmeet Singh visiting the riding twice during the election and Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley and local MLAs including Janis Irwin lending their support.
The mail-in ballots could help determine the final results in Edmonton-Centre and Edmonton-Griesbach. Elections Canada starts counting those tomorrow.
The Conservative vote dropped to 55 per cent from 69 per cent in the 2019 election. The NDP vote was up to 19 per cent, a big increase from 11 per cent in 2019 and even more than the 16 per cent the NDP earned during Jack Layton‘s Orange Wave of 2011. The Liberal vote is at 15 per cent, up from 13 per cent in 2019.
The People’s Party earned 7 per cent, placing a distant second in most rural ridings but not coming anywhere close to winning a seat in the province. The separatist Maverick Party was a lot of talk but barely showed up on the radar.
Ontario MP Derek Sloan, who moved to Alberta in hopes to win a seat was defeated in Banff-Airdrie, placing fifth with 2 per cent of the vote.
But the biggest loser of the night in Alberta is Premier Jason Kenney, who’s refusal to act early and prevent the deadly fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic damaged Erin O’Toole and the federal Conservatives in the final week of the federal election.
Kenney is expected to face serious questions about his leadership when United Conservative Party MLAs meet for a caucus meeting on Wednesday. There are rumours that Kenney might even be forced to resign as Premier.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh makes a health care announcement outside the East Edmonton Health Centre
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh spent today campaigning in Edmonton-Griesbach with local candidate Blake Desjarlais, who the party believes is in a position to defeat Conservative candidate Kerry Diotte.
Jagmeet Singh speaks to Alberta nurses and health care workers.
Singh started the day with a health care announcement outside the East Edmonton Health Centre with Desjarlais, Edmonton-Strathcona MP Heather McPherson and a group of nurses and health care workers.
During his announcement Singh criticized the Liberals for not doing enough to improve affordability of long-term care and hold the corporations that run long-term care centres to account after outbreaks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“He voted against getting rid of profit from long-term care, making it clear he would rather protect the interests of the for-profit, billion-dollar corporations that profit off the backs of seniors, rather than putting seniors first,” Singh said.
Blake Desjarlais
This puts Justin Trudeau, who made his own seniors care announcement in Victoria today, in a difficult position of not wanting to engage in an important but largely provincial issue that could sour relations with other provincial governments, like Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.
As noted in my previous post, unlike the last federal election campaign, Alberta NDP MLAs are campaigning alongside some federal NDP candidates in this election.
Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood MLA Janis Irwin, Edmonton-Glenora MLA Sarah Hoffman, and Edmonton-South MLA Thomas Dang were at an afternoon rally outside the Bellevue Community Hall where a crowd of NDP supporters gathered to cheer on Singh, Desjarlais and other areas candidates, including Edmonton-Centre candidate and former public school board trustee Heather Mackenzie.
This is a significant shift in federal-provincial NDP relations, which were much frostier during the 2019 federal election when the dominant issues were the carbon tax and pipelines.
Jason Kenney (source: Facebook)
In another sign of changing times, Singh used his visit to Alberta to leverage the declining popularity of Premier Jason Kenney, especially on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and his decision to attack frontline nurses, doctors, and health care workers.
Kenney has been conspicuously missing from the campaign trail, scheduling a vacation instead (when he returns he will be without a Principal Secretary, as Larry Kaumeyer is leaving the Premier’s Office to become the new head of Ducks Unlimited).
While Kenney will likely pop up campaigning for a candidate somewhere, it is a considerable difference from 2019 when the Alberta Premier spent an entire week campaigning for Conservative Party candidates in Ontario and Manitoba.
In 2019, Kenney was seen as an asset for Andrew Scheer. In 2021, he might be a liability for Erin O’Toole.
Trudeau touches down in Calgary-Skyview
Justin Trudeau and George Chahal (source: Twitter)
Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau’s plane touched down in Calgary tonight to make a quick campaign stop in support of Calgary-Skyview candidate and City Councillor George Chahal.
“With the right representation, we can build prosperous communities. We need to diversify our economy, invest in infrastructure like we did with Airport Trail and the Green Line and we must continue to do so with public infrastructure such as the expansion of the Blue Line, Arts Common, and the development of the multi-sport fieldhouse at the Foothills Athletic Park,” said Chahal in a press release following the event.
Voters in the district, in which the Calgary International Airport is located, elected former Liberal MLA Darshan Kang in 2015 and Conservative Jag Sahota in 2019.
Banff gets a new kind of tourist
Supported by former Conservative MPs Rob Anders and Eric Lowther, Ontario MP Derek Sloan announced his plans to run as an Independent candidate in Banff-Airdrie.
The first-term former Conservative from southeast Ontario has been travelling around Alberta for the past month speaking at rallies of anti-vaxxer and COVID-19 conspiracy theorists.
The political tourist claims he wants to “Make Alberta Great Again.”
Sloan will challenge Conservative MP Blake Richards, who was re-elected in 2019 with 71.09 per cent of the vote.
Candidates say the dumbest things
We have not entered the “airing of dumb things candidates have said on social media” phase of the federal election campaign. The Conservative Party released a statement from Calgary-Nose Hill candidate Michelle Rempel Garner attacking Liberal candidate Jessica Dale-Walker for a March 2020 tweet that said “Fit in or fuck off. We Alberta need to start fitting in. Because quite frankly, we are not as superior as our government touts.”
Dale-Walker responded, in a tweet: My tweet last summer was thoughtless and wrong. Thats certainly not how i feel today. I want to be absolutely clear I am double vaccinated and I believe all Canadians, who can, should be. If my brash comments caused anyone to think otherwise, I apologize.”
New candidates
Hugo Charles has been nominated as the NDP candidate in Edmonton-Wetaskiwin.
Kelly Green has been nominated as the Green Party candidate in Edmonton-Strathcona.
The Libertarian Party has nominated Morgan Watson in Edmonton-Griesbach and MalcolmStinson in Edmonton-Strathcona.
The People’s Party has nominated Jacob Cohen in Calgary-Centre, Dwayne Holub in Calgary-Forest Lawn, Ron Vaillant in Calgary-Shepard, Nicholas Debrey in Calgary-Signal Hill, Brock Crocker in Edmonton-Centre, Martin Halvorson in Edmonton-Manning, Jennifer Peace in Edmonton-Riverbend, Wesley Janke in Edmonton-Strathcona, Daniel Hunter in Foothills, Shawn McLean in Grande Prairie-Mackenzie, Ann McCormack in Lakeland, Mardon Day in Red Deer-Lacombe, Kelly Lorencz in Red Deer-MountainView, John Wetterstrand in Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan, and Michael Manchen in Yellowhead,
Blake Desjarlais, Jagmeet Singh, and Heather McPherson at Kind Ice Cream in Highlands in July 2021. (photo credit: Heather McPherson on Twitter)
New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh will be the first party leader to visit Alberta in this election campaign when he stops in Edmonton on August 19.
Singh will be spending his whole day in Edmonton-Griesbach starting with a 9:30am health care announcement outside the East Edmonton Health Centre and a 1:15pm “whistle stop event” at the Bellevue Community Hall at in support of local candidate Blake Desjarlais and other candidates in the capital city.
Desjarlais is Director of Public Affairs & National Operations for the Metis Settlements General Council and the former Co-Chair of Alberta’s Indigenous Climate Leadership Summit. The NDP are pouring some resources into the riding, including support from Edmonton-Strathcona NDP MP Heather McPherson, in hopes that Desjarlais can unseat second-term Conservative MP Kerry Diotte.
Unlike the last election, a few Alberta NDP MLAs are campaigning alongside the federal NDP. Popular Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood MLA Janis Irwin has lent her support and her extensive social media reach to Desjarlais (she ran against Diotte in 2015), as has Edmonton-Rutherford MLA Richard Feehan, who served as Minister of Indigenous Relations from 2016 to 2019.
Meanwhile, as Graham Thomson writes in ipolitics today, unlike the last federal election campaign, Premier Jason Kenney is now seen as a liability for his federal Conservative brethren. The Premier’s Office has said that Kenney is currently on vacation.
Ontario MP Derek Sloan running in Banff-Airdrie?
Derek Sloan speaking to a crowd in Calgary. (source: Facebook)
Independent Ontario MP Derek Sloan has spent the past month travelling around Alberta speaking to increasingly large crowds of anti-vaxxer and COVID-19 conspiracy theorists. Videos on his social media accounts show he has recently spoken at evangelical-style events in Airdrie, Calgary, Camrose, Claresholm, Cochrane, Red Deer and St. Albert.
The first-term MP from Hastings-Lennox and Addington was kicked out of the Conservative caucus in January 2021 after making numerous controversial statements about abortion and LGBTQ issues, and accepting a donation from a neo-Nazi.
Sloan apparently sees Alberta as his new political home, because in an email to his supporters today he pledged to never leave and “Make Alberta Great Again!” as he plans to make an important announcement in the town of Cochrane tomorrow. Rumours has it that the life-long Ontarian plans to run as an Independent candidate in Banff-Airdrie, where incumbent Conservative MP Blake Richards is seeking re-election.
Federal Conservatives endorse Senate Nominee candidates
The federal Conservative Party has endorsed three candidates in the upcoming Senate Nominee election to select two nominees to submit to the Prime Minster of appointment tot he upper chamber.
Lobbyist and former United Conservative Party president Erika Barootes, right-wing activist and former municipal election candidate Pam Davidson and Canadian Ukrainian Free Trade Agreement Association president Mykhailo Martyniouk will have the endorsement of the federal party in the October elections.
Newly nominated federal election candidates
The Liberal Party has nominated Leah McLeod in Battle River-Crowfoot, Jessica Dale-Walker in Calgary-Nose Hill, Dan Campbell in Grande Prairie-Mackenzie, and Hannah Wilson in Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner.
The Communist Party of Canada has nominated candidates Jonathan Trautman in Calgary-Forest Lawn,Alex Boykowich in Edmonton-Griesbach and Naomi Rankin in Edmonton-Mill Woods.
The Green Party has nominated Daniel Brisbin in Battle River-Crowfoot.
The Maverick Party has replaced Doug Karwandy with Jeff Golka in Battle River-Crowfoot.
The Christian Heritage Party has nominated former Wildrose candidate Jeff Willerton in Sturgeon River-Parkland and Derek Vanspronsen in Calgary-Heritage. Previously announced Calgary-Heritage candidate Larry Heather is now running in Calgary-Nose Hill.
With a federal election expected to be called on Sunday for a September 20 Election Day, the Liberal Party has announced a number of newly nominated candidates in Alberta:
Jordan Stein in Calgary-Forest Lawn. Stein was the Liberal candidate in Calgary-Confederation in the 2019 federal election and Alberta NDP candidate in Calgary-Glenmore in the 2019 provincial election.
David Gamble in Banff-Airdrie. Gamble was the Liberal candidate in Calgary-Klein in the 2015 provincial election and briefly considered running for the 2021 Liberal nomination in Calgary-Confederation.
Shawn Duncan in Calgary-Signal Hill
Hibo Mohamedin Edmonton-Strathcona. Mohamed is the executive assistant to the CEO of YWCA Edmonton and is the former president of the University of Alberta campus Liberal club. She was an Alberta Party volunteer in the 2019 provincial election.